ONDC to touch 10 million transactions in June: Official

Kolkata: The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which was set up with an aim to democratise the country's e-commerce ecosystem, is on course to touch the 10-million transaction mark in June, a senior official said on Thursday.

The open network has been adding one million transactions on a month-on-month basis, he said.

"We will touch 10 million transactions in the month of June. We are growing strong, adding about one million transactions month-on-month," ONDC CBO and President (Network Expansion) Shireesh Joshi said.

Joshi was speaking here on the sidelines of the Bengal Chamber-organised 3rd edition of ‘World MSME Day’.

He said testing of financial services with loans has also commenced with two private lenders, and the network will start insurance offerings soon, too.

"Once these two categories settle, we will also include mutual funds," Joshi said.

The official expressed hope that ONDC will surpass major e-commerce players like Flipkart and Amazon in future.

At present, the number of transactions on ONDC is small, but it has been growing steadily and rapidly over the past year-and-a-half, he said.

Earlier, there were doubts about the success of ONDC as an open network, but it has been proven that it works very well, and is growing with new categories getting added in phases, Joshi said.

The network has also provided export opportunities, he added.

Arup Kumar, the CGM of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), said the lender is supporting MSMEs in several ways, including onboarding them onto the ONDC.

He also said SIDBI has signed an MoU with the government for funding ‘Jan Aushadhi’ stores.